That Time We Walked Into Chase Bank In Williamsburg With A Marching Drummer

This year has been crazy to say the least. I actually first realized the tall guy in a pink hoodie was Tim Shwartz after combing through hours of footage I’ve accrued traveling from DAPL protests. Eventually, we met and a conversation led to us teaming up on filming a Chase bank exit.

What exactly is a bank exit? Well, thousands of people across the country have been closing their accounts with Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, BNP Paribas, SunTrust, and U.S. Bancorp to name the biggest ones because they all fund private prisons and invest heavily in dirty energy like DAPL. By extending revolving credit to these companies, underwriting their bonds, and providing them with term loans, we are allowing the banks use their capital power to invest in policies of mass incarceration that has devastated families and communities largely of color and allow pipelines like DAPL to develop.

On May 5th 2017 on an unbearable rainy and cold Cinco De Mayo day, we met up with fellow activists from all over the country under the J-train at Broadway in Williamsburg facing the Chase Bank we would soon demonstrate.

The banks are enabling these companies to profit off the criminal justice system. If these companies didn’t have access to revolving credit, it would become much harder for them to finance their businesses so if you have a bank account with any of the aforementioned you can simply close your bank account and move to a credit union or you can contact Tim Shwartz and have him film your bank exit on his active Facebook page and show the world you will not be complicit in the corruption of big banks!

Another great resource is Defund DAPL, who state “Our financial system is outdated. At its heart lies a blind devotion to short-term profit at all costs. If we are to turn the tides on Climate Change and Social Inequality we must change our money system. We can start this transformation by moving all our money out of institutions funding projects like DAPL. This is the start of a movement, will you join us till every last dollar is in service of the People and the Planet?” On their site here, they explore other options for clean money.

Here are names of CEOs and other bank executives involved in these decisions—along with their phone numbers and email addresses. The first 17 banks (*) are directly funding projects like the Dakota Access pipeline.

The information compiled here is from the latest information from Food & Water Watch research, Bloomberg data, and contact information reported by the banks. If there are corrections or additions that we should consider, please let us know. This information will be updated as needed.